Note for hackers interested in the proposed new "european constitution", with a few lame pdftotext I made a one file text version [1.1 MB] of the english and french version of the document, they're both available on my near empty web site. The french version has been cleaned up by Jean Thiery, the english one is still raw pdftotext.

Though computer programs aren't yet as dangerous as fire, flaws can destroy businesses, throw elections, and even kill. Car brakes are increasingly electronic and steering is headed that way. Software errors in radiotherapy devices continue to maim and take lives. Bad code has been implicated in a number of deadly aircraft incidents. The National Institute of Standards and Technology claims the cost of bugs runs some $60 billion a year in the U.S. alone.

Codes for safe software

Why are there no fire codes for software?

Today the Feds mandate standards for some firmware. But take a gander at the Federal Election Commission or Food and Drug Administration rules. The regulations are loose and woefully inadequate. Firmware is at a point in time metaphorically equivalent to the fire-fighting industry in 1860. We have sporadic but ineffective regulation. The press occasionally warms to a software crisis but by and large there's little furor over the state of the art.

Rest assured there will be a fire code for software. As more life- and mission-critical applications appear, as firmware dominates every aspect of our lives, when a bug causes some horrible disaster, the public will no longer tolerate errors and crashes. Our representatives will see the issue as good politics.

Interesting SPAM solution on kuro5hin. I'd say nice economics and social reasoning.
My personal touch would be to respond not with my
own coordinate but with some random lawyer coordinates to
ensure an interesting fight between social parasites :).

My interpretation is that it's a very good thing, bye bye
software patents in Europe if this goes through the next steps (unlikely but well :).

1. Article 1: Purpose

This Directive lays down rules for the patentability of computer-implemented inventions.

2. Article 2: Definitions

2a. "computer-implemented invention" means any invention in the sense of the European Patent Convention the performance of which involves the use of a computer, computer network or other programmable apparatus and having in its implementations one or more non-technical features which are realised wholly or partly by a computer program or computer programs, besides the technical features that any invention must contribute;

2b. "technical contribution", also called "invention", means a contribution to the state of the art in technical field. The technical character of the contribution is one of the four requirements for patentability. Additionally, to deserve a patent, the technical contribution has to be new, non-obvious, and susceptible of industrial application.

2c. "technical field" means an industrial application domain requiring the use of controllable forces of nature to achieve predictable results. "Technical" means "belonging to a technical field". The use of forces of nature to control physical effects beyond the digital representation of information belongs to a technical domain. The production, handling, processing, distribution and presentation of information do not belong to a technical field, even when technical devices are employed for such purposes.

2d. "industry" in the sense of patent law means "automated production of material goods";

3. Article 3a: Fields of Technology

3a. Member states shall ensure that data processing is not considered to be a field of technology in the sense of patent law, and that innovations in the field of data processing are not considered to be inventions in the sense of patent law.

4. Article 4: Rules of Patentability

4.1. In order to be patentable, a computer-implemented invention must be susceptible of industrial application and new and involve an inventive step.

4.2. In order to involve an inventive step, a computer-implemented invention must make a technical contribution.

4.3. The significant extent of the technical contribution shall be assessed by consideration of the difference between the technical elements included in the scope of the patent claim considered as a whole and the state of the art.

4.3a. In determining whether a given computer-implemented invention makes a technical contribution, the following test shall be used: whether it constitutes a new teaching on cause-effect relations in the use of controllable forces of natures and has an industrial application in the strict sense of the expression, in terms of both method and result.

5. Article 4a: Exclusions from patentability

4a.1. A computer-implemented invention shall not be regarded as making a technical contribution merely because it involves the use of a computer, network or other programmable apparatus. Accordingly, inventions involving computer programs which implement business, mathematical or other methods and do not produce any technical effects beyond the normal physical interactions between a program and the computer, network or other programmable apparatus in which it is run shall not be patentable.

4a.2. Member States shall ensure that computer-implemented solutions to technical problems are not considered to be patentable inventions merely because they improve efficiency in the use of resources within the data processing system.

6. Article 5: Form of Claims; and further provisions

5. Member States shall ensure that a computer-implemented invention may be claimed only as a product, that is a set of equipment comprising both programmable apparatus and devices which use forces of nature in an inventive way, or as a technical production process operated by such a computer, computer network or apparatus through the execution of software.

5a. Member States shall ensure that the production, handling, processing, distribution and publication of information, in whatever form, can never constitute direct or indirect infringement of a patent, even when a technical apparatus is used for that purpose.

5b. Member States shall ensure that patent claims granted in respect of computer-implemented inventions include only the technical contribution which justifies the patent claim.

5c. Member States shall ensure that the use of a computer program for purposes that do not belong to the scope of the patent cannot constitute a direct or indirect patent infringement.

5d. Member States shall ensure that whenever a patent claim names features that imply the use of a computer program, a well-functioning and well documented reference implementation of such a program is published as part of the patent description without any restricting licensing terms.

7. Article 6: Interoperability

6. The rights conferred by patents granted for inventions within the scope of this Directive shall not affect acts permitted under Articles 5 and 6 of Directive 91/250/EEC on the legal protection of computer programs by copyright, in particular under the provisions thereof in respect of decompilation and interoperability.

6a. Member States shall ensure that, wherever the use of a patented technique is needed for a significant purpose such as ensuring conversion of the conventions used in two different computer systems or networks so as to allow communication and exchange of data content between them, such use is not considered to be a patent infringement.

TV is a very low information bitrate media, and highly controlled. That's
funny because the most controversial reports sometimes do not appear on TV, even in France
we had a few of those going out on movie theaters to avoid TV censorship.
Printed newspaper are very expensive to produce ($/bit), and since it's mostly crap
nobody buy them anymore, so it reflects the views of those who pay for advertisement.
Nobody wants to be an online subscriber for the same reason, why pay for crap?
The net result is that journalists can sincerely say that they have no room for your
story, which is true, but of course no "why is it so".

Copy/paste from the same source

If you have access to financial news service (I do since
I work in a trading room), you'll notice that a huge
percentage of so called articles are just slightly
modified copy/paste of the financial news. If you follow
Google News you'll find out that a lot of articles
have exactly the same structure with minimal changes
like some student copying homework and trying not to get caught.
The reason is the same as above, no money, no time to write
articles. I did find out by discussing with friends a few weeks
ago how incredibly low the pay is per article for freelancer in France.
Flipping burgers pays more.

Social things

I've read a few documents on how journalists in the US (and elsewhere)
migrated from being close to the blue collars to being close to the white collars, hence the
shift in focus and tone. Serge Halimi (journalist at Le Monde Diplomatique)
published a pamphlet a few years ago entitled "The New Watchdogs" ("Les nouveaux
chiens de garde")
talking about mainstream medias, the title gives a taste of it,
ISBN 2-912107-01-6.

Media Self Criticizing

Brings no money in, forget about it.

I'm currently subscribed to only one printed newspaper which
is Le Monde Diplomatique.
It's thirty two pages of deep and well written papers once a month, sometimes by high profile american
activists and professors, honestly that's enough reading for a month IMHO. When
I need more, I just google around. The last two monthes are online,
I believe there's an english edition (I can find you the reference if you're
interested).

Went to see the movie "Last Party 2000" last week, wow. All put together, at some
point, it's not unbelievable that we'll see American people fleeing
back to Europe seeking freedom, world peace, trying to avoid persecution and general
madness, it could be quite an interesting bit of history in reverse. Of course
we have to preserve "Old Europe" from all this madness and this without doubt will
be quite a challenge.

Hey raph you said you wanted some discussions,
let's spark some with a flamethrower :).

raph, thanks for your kind comments. To be honest after having done my research on the issue, I obviously now have an opinion on the situation and who are the bad and not so bad guyes in Venezuela today. Looks like the constitutional court ruled out wednesday an early referendum and that Jimmy Carter is proposing a reasonable constitutional-based outcome.

I hope the "opposition" won't try to escalate the crisis, that the lockout will cease (it's not a strike as it is commonly understood, the bosses closed the shops and factories, part of the employees are still paid...) and that a democratic and constitutional vote will end this dark story in August without too much blood spilled.

raph Funny coincidence, I posted
yesterday on the
fsfe-france mailing list my opinion on the state of mainstream medias and the rise of blogs, and it looks like a french translation of yours :).

However your example illustrates the risk of relying
on only one blog, this particular one is a masterpiece of disinformation.

If you're interested in the media and politics, the Venezuela story is exceptional. I have no tie to Venezuela
and I wouldn't be able to spot it on a south america map,
but I got interested into this case because of total inconsistency
in the french media - information released was contradictory and complete nonsense, this couldn't be true - of the reports in the "coup" of April 2002.
I was lucky that a few debates and
academic conferences took place nearby in Paris
so I could make up my mind on the issue, getting mass
of factual information that never appeared, and will probably never appear in any mainstream media.

Why the blog is about disinformation, read the paragraphs before

The president himself, in a unconscionable show of his growing contempt for what anybody else thinks, vowed that he would not step down "even if 90% voted yes."

The context is the February 2003 referendum requested by the opposition. This is indeed
factually true, but it omits a big piece of the information (hence my disinformation masterpiece claim): the
Venezuela constitution allows that a binding presidential referendum
in August 2003 (mandate mid term, you need a big enough petition), and the
president Chavez always stated that he would
follow the result of this (August) constitutionally correct
referendum, and never submit to any inconstitutional referendum on the subject.

Now you ask yourself why on earth
the opposition is risking to throw the country into total chaos instead of having a public debate (FYI: oppositions control all the TV channels in Venezuala except the state owned one and all the mainstream newspapers) and just waiting for August? Hmmm.

I saw some speeches of Chavez and I must admit
I'd never vote for him in a "normal" country,
but I guess the other candidates were so obviously corrupted
and evil that he got elected anyway.

I really encourage people to spend some time googling/thinking
on this, and to compare what you found and what mainstream medias
are saying. Here is one USA-based debate,
to start with (shows both views on the issue) there is plenty of information around.